Twitter Influence: Another Case Study

I wrote a Twitter Influence case study in a previous blog comparing the different approaches that @TweetSmarter and @tonystevens4 took towards building a strong Twitter Influence, concluding with the lessons I have learned by following them.

Guy Kawasaki, co-founder of Alltop. Courtesy: guykawasaki.com

The following case study takes the same approach towards analyzing the Twitter Influence of another prominent, highly followed, highly listed and highly influential user, with two usernames: @GuyKawasaki / @Alltop. Guy Kawasaki, co-founder of Alltop, tweets from both accounts, and each account serves a slightly different purpose. I will, like before, present my findings from what I learned by following Guy’s accounts and the example tweets that back up my findings.

Like @TweetSmarter, I would describe @GuyKawasaki and @Alltop as a reliable source of information. In Guy’s words, his website, Alltop, is “an online magazine rack”. Indeed, when browsing the subject headings on Alltop, you will find about as many topics as you would find at the magazine section of Barnes and Noble or Borders.

What he does

Guy sets a schedule for tweets on his namesake’s username, @GuyKawasaki, so that people in different time zones around the world can read the articles referenced in his tweets. If you are on your computer all day, you will see up to three tweets about the same topic from this username. Interestingly, when Guy follows you back, you will receive a direct message (DM) from him encouraging you to add his other username, @Alltop. He promises that the tweets from @Alltop are unique and non-repeating, even though they originate from the same place as the tweets from @GuyKawasaki.

What does Guy tweet about? A lot of subjects, to say the least. All of Guy’s tweets from both accounts link to the Alltop website, particularly the section called, “Holy Kaw! All the topics that interest us.“ In other words, since the articles featured in this section are, in their opinion, the most interesting or intriguing, his followers are very likely to retweet them. Meanwhile, visitors to the Alltop website can find an archive of articles that Guy has tweeted about previously as well as links to “stories [from] the top news websites and blogs from any given topic”, which include the following:

In addition, a handful of ghost writers and “ghost Twitterers” help Guy write the “starting point” introductions that entice his followers enough to click through to the article source.

Why this is significant

Guy and his company, Alltop, have become a reliable source of information that his followers trust, relying on “results of Google searches, review of the sites’ and blogs’ content, researchers, and [their] ‘gut’ plus the recommendations of the Twitter community, owners of the sites and blogs, and people who care enough to write to [them]“. The Twitter community, therefore, has served as nothing short of a content filter, and Alltop displaying just the filtered content. Aware that the content may have worldwide appeal, he schedules tweets on the @GuyKawasaki account to appear three or four times per day to make sure that people in different countries and time zones can read his tweets while they are awake. In order to avoid repeat tweets that some people consider spam, he sends unique, non-repeating tweets from the @Alltop account. When people visit the Alltop website, they find themselves at a website with well-organized topics and high-value content that may very well become their default news portal. When you schedule tweets on a daily basis and have tens of thousands of tweets under your belt under both usernames each, you may need a hand at sending extra tweets or writing article introductions.

By the way, I must note one caveat. Recently, Twitter updated their policy that banned recurring tweets. Strictly speaking, no two tweets can be sent that is a character-for-character copy of each other. While some high-volume users have stopped long-term scheduled tweets (e.g. verbatim tweets posted at regular intervals), others, such as Guy, have pressed the services of multiple URL shortcuts that use 301 redirect, as seen below. Twitter sees the character string of each tweet as unique even though all three links lead to the same article in Alltop:

While @TweetSmarter and @tonystevens4 exert their Twitter Influence on the Twitter medium almost exclusively, Guy Kawasaki exerts a Twitter Influence beyond the Twitter realm thanks to the Alltop website. In fact, Guy could conceivably have a following from people who read the news regularly yet not be a part of Twitter or Facebook at all. I can conclude with certainty that Guy is a reliable, retweetable source of information through his Twitter usernames, @GuyKawasaki and @Alltop, and the Alltop website.

5 Responses to “Twitter Influence: Another Case Study”

I follow Guy K and always recommend him to new Tweeps, but while I find a lot of gems, I wonder if anyone is reading the articles before tweeting them. Too often, the article title is great, but actual article, or advice they’re offering, is not. I like quality over quantity.

If I were to do a proper study of the behavior of the followers that retweet Guy’s articles involving thousand of followers, I could get close to addressing your concern. Alas, it was much easier to study and analyze the Twitter Influencers over the influenced. Your concern has merit, though, and I am inclined to agree with you. In the previous case study, I wrote that some followers, including myself, at least in the beginning, would retweet an article from users with a strong Twitter Influence almost immediately after the post like a reflex action. By now, however, since I actually produce content, I *must* read source articles.

I regularly check on some of the goodies Guy shares – many of them appeal to various sectors of my various networks so I’m able to quickly dash off a ‘headsup’ to these people. I find it very helpful myself.

Subjects that Guy has yet to share with us, I believe those would be harder to find. That is the appeal of a news portal; the wide range of subjects he and his website covers. I read and write about various subjects myself, so I am drawn to many of the subjects he covers.

I am a follower of Guy and absolutely love his tweets not only because of the variety of topics but how he goes about it. It was only just recently that i tweeted that people should follow his tweets – his tweets are ones that i tend to read and always have some relevance.